Weird statistic... page

[Kochin]

But likely true.

From this article: Flavorists, Experts in the Field of Natural and Artificial Flavoring, Work in Top Secret New Jersey Labs
"Products that include flavorists’ laboratory-made concoctions in their ingredient lists are said to account for 90 percent of items bagged and toted home from U.S. grocery stores."

Flavorists use herbs and chemicals to create, recreate and enhance flavours. Their work is done on processed dairy, pre-prepared meats, packaged stuff, fast-food and all the junk and grain-based stuff too.

But, still... That means that in your "average" American diet, only 10% of what you eat is:
-fresh fruit
-fresh veg
-nuts
-fresh fish
-fresh meat
-eggs
-milk
10%... And ALL the rest is bread, cake, pasta, jarred sauces, jams, sweets, yoghurts, juices, fizzy drinks, fast food, packaged and pre-cooked stuff...

WTF?

[JoanieL]

If I look at how I grocery shopped as little as seven months ago, I could be close to that. I regularly bought:

-Coffemate (sugar free non-dairy creamer)
-I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
-Low calorie pudding
-Whole chickens (at Walmart, these are packed (and I think injected) with a 15% sodium solution)
-tubes of ground beef (pink slime - why I don't shop at Walmart ever now except for the occasional non-food item)
-Vegan lowfat mayonnaise (full of chemicals)
-Things I actually thought were okay like tomato sauce in cans (ingredients ok, bpa in cans), tuna in water in cans (except it also had soy and bpa in the cans)
-45 calorie per slice bread (HFCS)

Less often, I bought:

-Nonfat flavored yogurt
-an awesome tasting frozen Mexican "dinner" that was huge, cost less than $2 and had about 600 calories (and about 600 chemicals)
-Progresso lower calorie soups (many chemicals and bpa cans)

So, even though I usually ate better than some folks on SAD, i.e. no McD, soda, not much cookies/cake, etc., and cooked a lot of meat and veggie meals, I was eating a lot of crap.

Pink slime debacle broke. I started reading. Found MDA. Ditched the crap.

[Tribal Rob]

I can belive it too, so many people eat things out of packages and don't cook from scratch as they think it's hard, so even something 'healthy' like spag bol will for most people be meat, pasta and a jar of sacue and that's cooking. Typical UK diet - breakfast - cereal = processed crap, or toast (crap) with processed crap fat and processed crap sugary crap, lunch - sandwich with crap meat and other crap, crisps (chips for my yank friends ) some kind of procced snack product, maybe a diet yogert, maybe a bit of fruit, a soda, evening meal, take-out or pizza or ready meal, or even if cooking, chips (OK fries) prococces meat in fake sauce, bisto gravy etc etc etc etc. We eat some shit this side of the pond too

[sjmc]

I can believe it, but I sure wish the author would actually attribute the statistic to someone or something!

[Knifegill]

Sounds about right. Everything I used to eat came out of a sealed bag or a box, ALL of it had artificial flavors.

[jojohaligo]

Apparently though, even "natural" flavours, are not really natural.

[Mr. Koozie]

You are correct. Natural flavors are anything but. To learn more about the flavor industry read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Great book. Horrible movie.

[CrazyCatLady]

It is amazing now when I go to the store how little is in my cart. It used to be full of corn chips, cereals, (not the sugary kinds) and breads. And once a week I would fill my cart up with this stuff, along with my meats, cheeses, milk and vegetables.

Now the cart is about 1/2 full. The only grains I get are cereal (corn flakes and rice crispies) for my kids because they are not fully on my diet. Meats, nuts, milk, vegetables, sour cream and coconut milk tend to be most of my purchase on a weekly basis. Oh, and fish sauce. That is how I enhance the flavors in my foods.

[Rojo]

I can believe it, but I sure wish the author would actually attribute the statistic to someone or something!

I think a large part of it is lack of money. Boxed mac-and-cheese and cannned tamales are super cheap.